


Arm yourself (because no one else here will save you)

by Silfrvarg



Series: Master thieves and private eyes (bad things happen bingo) [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 15:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18594289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silfrvarg/pseuds/Silfrvarg
Summary: How did Juno learn the trick of hiding a plasma cutter up his sleeve in case he gets kidnapped? By getting kidnapped of course!





	Arm yourself (because no one else here will save you)

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written for an anonymous prompt for the square 'bound and gagged' with Juno or Peter for my Bad Things Happen Bingo card. I started it like two months ago but uni has eaten my entire life so I've only managed to finish it now, and, by finish, I mean I'm sick of looking at it so I'm posting it.  
> No particular warnings apply.

Juno has been having a bad feeling all day. Not the ‘everything is terrible especially me’ sort of feeling (that’s a given) but the ‘something is about to go horribly horribly wrong’ sort of feeling. It isn’t anything solid, more a general feeling of unease, like Hyperion City feels a little meaner than usual today. It could just be paranoia, but in a town like this, ignoring your instincts is a quick way to get yourself killed.

There’s not much he can do about it though, other than stay a little more alert. He still goes to the office, still works his cases, nothing too exciting, just the usual stream of cheating spouses, missing family members, stolen belongings and ruined lives, all the while waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So, he’s not exactly surprised when it does. He’s still a little disappointed though. Don’t get him wrong, he _likes_ being right, but he probably could have done without being ambushed in a dark alley, cuffed and thrown into the boot of a car.

It’s a relatively spacious boot, as far as boots go, so long as he keeps his knees tucked up to his chest he fits quite well. The rattling wheeze of the engine and the way it jolts and drops as the hover-plates sputter and lose power every so often is somewhat less comforting.

Maybe he should be less worried by the state of the car and more worried by the fact that he was cuffed and blindfolded in the boot of it, but at this point, he’s not really fazed by the whole kidnapping thing anymore.

See, he’s only been a private eye for a year or so, but it’s been long enough to learn a few things; digging through trash is harder than it looks, showing up at too many crime scenes gets you arrested, cheating spouses sometimes carry knuckledusters, broken ribs are a pain in the ass but there’s not much you can do about them except suffer, and sometimes you get kidnapped.

The reasons vary. Sometimes it’s because he pissed off the wrong people, sometimes it’s because he pissed off the _right_ people. Sometimes he knows something he shouldn’t, or someone _thinks_ he knows something he shouldn’t, and they want to beat an answer out of him or just take him somewhere private to murder him.

He’s not sure which category this kidnapping falls under, the thugs that had grabbed him hadn’t exactly been forthcoming. Something tells him he won’t have to wait too long to find out though, the car is slowing down. It comes to a stop, he can hear the doors opening, the sound of raised voices, heavy footsteps coming towards the back of the car. Juno tenses, and the boot opens with a rusty squeal.

This would be the point where Juno would go on the offensive and try to turn the tables on his captors, or, it would be if he could get out of the boot under his own power.

“Hey, a little help here? I’d get up, but, well…” Juno asks, and his voice is pleasant and friendly in a way he can only manage when he’s imagining punching the person he’s talking to. Repeatedly.

None of the thugs bother to answer him, which is rude, but they _do_ pull him roughly out of the boot and start dragging him towards whatever place they’re using for this whole kidnapping thing.

That ends up being the basement of an abandoned apartment building, with broken windows, crumbled walls covered in graffiti and a level of neglect that’s almost aggressive, like whoever was living here packed up and left and only skipped burning the place to the ground because they were in a hurry. The place could probably be improved with a little bit of light arson, but hey, that could be said for most of Oldtown.

“Just once I’d like to be kidnapped and taken somewhere _nice_ ,” Juno grumbles, “Is that too much to ask for?”

The only answer he gets is a rough shove between the shoulder blades as they half drag, half push him down the rickety stairs and into the single chair directly under the dim overhead light, because sometimes criminals are really dedicated to the clichés. The chair is pressing uncomfortably on his cuffed arms, and he wriggles a bit to try and alleviate the pressure.

“So, what’s a lady like me doing in a place like this?” Juno asks, raising an eyebrow at his captors, “Getting kidnapped is fun and all, but I’d kinda like to know _why_.”

He doesn’t get an answer right away, well, he _does_ , but it’s in the form of a punch to the face that leaves his vision swimming and his ears ringing loudly.

“Hey,” he groans out, “If you didn’t want to answer you could’ve just said so.”

“Stop. Talking.” The largest thug growls, and that would probably be a smart idea right about now, but Juno’s never been one to do the smart thing and he’s not about to start now.

“Why? I’m just trying to ask a question. You can’t blame a lady for being curious.” Juno shrugs.

“I said to shut up!” The thug raises their fist menacingly, and Juno doesn’t really want to get hit again, because that sucked, but he’s not very good at doing what he’s told either.

“If you didn’t want to hear me talk then you shouldn’t have kidnapped me,” Juno points out, “So how about you just let me go and then-“

He gets punched in the face, again. It’s much harder than the first time actually, and as the thug’s fist makes contact with his nose, he feels a sharp, eye watering pain as something _cracks_ and blood starts pouring down his face, hot and wet and gross.

“Hey, easy on the face Jennings!” One of the other thugs warns, “You mess him up too bad and Holland won’t recognise him, then how’re we supposed to get paid?”

The largest thug, Jennings, backs off a bit at that, which Juno would be grateful for, except he’s still dripping blood everywhere, and unfortunately, he recognises the name Holland.

“Oh, _please_ don’t tell me you assholes work for Samantha Holland?” Juno groans, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Jennings just grins at him nastily, “She got released last week, and she’s just _dying_ to have a little chat with you.”

“Great, that’s just great.” Juno sighs.

See, one thing being a cop and being a private eye had in common was that both tended to make enemies; people usually didn’t like it when you got them arrested and sent to prison. He’d arrested Samantha Holland for smuggling highly illegal weapons through Oldtown back when he’d first made detective when he was still with the HCPD.

When he’d caught her, she’d sworn that one day she was going to find him, rip him into tiny pieces and then shoot him with his own blaster. You’d think threatening to horribly murder her arresting officer would hurt her chances of getting released, but apparently, she knew how to behave herself enough to get parole. Or, more likely, she’d bribed her way out.

Either way it looked like she fully intended to make good on her promise. In fact, judging by the fact he can see his own blaster sitting on the pile of crates by the door, she’s planning on following it to the letter. Juno _really_ isn’t looking forward to the whole ‘ripping him into tiny pieces’ part.

“So, how much is Holland paying you to hand me over to her?” Juno asks casually. Well, he _tries_ to ask casually. Judging by the smirk on the second thug’s face he doesn’t succeed.

“More than you can afford,” the second thug laughs, low and nasty, “She wants to kill you _bad_.”

“Figured as much,” Juno shrugs, “Worth a shot though.”

“Fitz, if you don’t find a way to shut this guy up I will,” Jennings snarls, “And I don’t care how much I’ve gotta mess his face up to do it.”

“Look, buddy, if you can’t handle someone getting a little mouthy, you’re probably in the wrong line of work.” Juno huffs.

“Usually people have the good sense to keep their mouths shut so they don’t get hurt worse,” Fitz shrugs lazily, “I’m not sure if you’re too stubborn or too stupid to get the hint.”

“Honestly?” Juno raises an eyebrow, “It’s probably a bit of both. Besides, I can guarantee you however loud you think I’m being now? I’ll be a _whole_ lot louder once Holland starts tearing chunks off me. Fair warning.”

Fitz actually looks a little uncomfortable about that, which is a surprise, not many people manage to keep their scruples in a town as mean as this one. Still, the man’s willing to hand him over to Holland to die an agonizing death for a pay check, so clearly his conscience doesn’t run _that_ deep.

Jennings is muttering angrily under his breath, rummaging around in the mess of crates and boxes by the door for something. That something turns out to be half a roll of duct tape.

“Oh come on!” Juno complains as Jennings stalks towards him, “That’s just _rude_ -“

Jennings tears off a strip of the tape and grabs him by the hair, yanking his head forwards. Juno tries to struggle, but he’s going nowhere fast, and he doesn’t manage to get more than a couple of impolite words out before the tape is being smoothed over his mouth.

He tries to let his captors know just how he feels about that, but, well, duct tape is a classic for a reason, so all that he manages is some vaguely angry sounding muffled grunts. He settles for glaring fiercely instead, which doesn’t work so well as they just turn around and ignore him.

Rude.

Juno sits and glares, and glowers, he even experiments a little and seethes just for variety. Not that it matters much because his captors have moved over to the crates by the doorway and started playing cards, so his seething is wasted.

Without anyone to annoy, being kidnapped is, well, _boring_. If he wanted to sit staring silently at a wall he would have stayed in his apartment.

Still, he supposes he really _should_ take advantage of the reprieve while he has it, because once Holland arrives, being bored will be the _least_ of his worries. Honestly, much as he likes to say he’ll try anything once, he likes his various limbs and extremities where they are.

So, he thinks he should probably try to get out of here before that happens. No one is paying attention to him, and aside from the nose he’s only a little bruised up. He’s not going to get a better chance than this.

The cuffs around his wrist are pretty standard, and there’s a couple of ways someone could get out of them. They can be picked, if you have the tools for it, which Juno doesn’t. They can be broken, but it takes either a lot of force or just the right amount of leverage to manage and it sure as hell wouldn’t be _quiet_. They can be cut with a plasma blade, but wouldn’t you know it, Juno doesn’t keep a plasma blade up his sleeve.

That leaves the last option. The option that Juno’s been trying to avoid thinking about since he was captured, because he really _isn’t_ looking forward to it. Still, he’s looking forward to being dismembered even less, so…

He hates to admit it but it’s probably a good thing that his kidnappers gagged him.

He takes a few deep breaths, tries not to tense up too much, takes a hold of his left thumb with his right hands, and _twists_ as hard as he can.

He’s vaguely aware of hearing his thumb snap, but it pales in comparison to _feeling_ his thumb snap. He chokes on a scream, closing his eyes against the wavering in his vision and the stinging threat of tears.

He takes a few moments like that, breathing raggedly and trying to get the pain under control. It’s not the first bone he’s broken, not even the first bone he’s broken _tonight_ , but somehow breaking his _own_ bones hurts more.

Slowly, _painfully_ he shifts his left wrist, biting back another scream as he shifts the broken thumb so he can slip out of the cuff. His hands are free, the cuffs dangling from his right wrist, but he keeps them behind his back, waiting for an opening.

He can’t fight five men barehanded, especially not with one hand out of commission. His only chance is to get to the exit. He’s only going to get one shot at it; if he doesn’t make it count, he’s dead.

So he watches the thugs playing cards. Fitz is cheating, but he’s bad at it, Jennings can’t bluff worth a damn and only one of the other three seems to know what she’s actually doing, but none of that is actually _useful_ to him, and listening to them banter and complain about how long this is taking isn’t getting him anywhere either.

“I’m starved,” one of the thugs, a guy with a truly impressive number of piercings, complains at last, “What’s taking Holland so long? I thought she was ‘sposed to meet us here as soon as we confirmed we got her guy.”

“She said she’ll be late,” Jennings grumbles, “Has to keep her head down ‘cause the cops are watching her or somethin’, making sure she don’t break parole.”

“What, like by killing a guy?” Fitz snorts.

“Pretty much. She’ll be here once she shakes ‘em off.”

“How long’s that gonna take though?” piercings demands, “If I’d known she was gonna be _this_ long I would’ve stopped for takeout on the way here.”

The other two thugs seem to agree with piercings, and Fitz shrugs.

“Alright, Keller and Blake, you take the car and grab us all something to eat, but get back here quick. If Holland gets here before you do, I’m taking your share of the pay.” Fitz warns.

Keller and Blake shoot Fitz dirty looks, but they still take the keys and head up the stairs. Jennings, Fitz and the remaining thug go back to the card game.

Juno waits a few more minutes, waits until they’re attention is completely back on their cards, and then he moves.

He’s out of the chair and halfway to the thugs before they notice. Fitz shouts, makes a grab for him. Juno punches him in the face, once, twice, again for good measure, then moves past him, making for the exit.

Jennings is behind him, the other thug to his left, but Juno doesn’t have the time to deal with them. He steps over Fitz and makes a run for the exit.

He almost makes it. Almost.

Jennings collides with him from behind, sending them both crashing into the pile of crates by the stairs. The crates splinter and break under their combined weight, scattering their contents.

Juno’s winded from the fall, face down on the concrete with Jennings half on top of him. He raises his head with a groan, but Jennings grabs the back of his head and slams his face back into the concrete.

The impact leaves Juno dazed, blinking spots out of his vision, his nose streaming fresh blood down his face. Jennings gets up first.

A meaty hand closes around his ankle. Jennings is dragging him across the hard concrete, back towards the chair. Juno scrabbles against the floor desperately, fingers clawing through the shards of broken crates and the scattered cards.

If they put him back in that chair he’s done for. They won’t let him escape a second time.

His fingers close around something familiar, and despite it all, despite the fresh blood on his face, the agony in his hand, the tearing scrapes from being dragged across the concrete and the utter _rage_ he can feel pouring off Jennings that promises a world of pain, he grins.

Kicking out, he rolls onto his back. His right hand comes up, curled around the grip of his blaster. His left hand is steadying it, and the pain in his thumb doesn’t even matter anymore. Fitz has seen, is shouting a warning, but it’s too late.

Juno takes a single steadying breath. Exhales. Squeezes the trigger three times.

Three shots, three heavy thuds, then silence, save for his own breathing.

He gives himself a moment to catch his breath, and then, just for the hell of it, gives himself another few moments after that. Still, nice as it would be to just lie on the ground until everything stopped hurting so damned much, eventually either Holland or the other two thugs will show up, and he doesn’t really want to be here when they do.

He rolls to his feet with a wince. The thugs lay where they fell, stunned. They’ll have headaches when they wake up in a few hours, Juno doesn’t feel even a little bad about that.

Honestly this whole day has sucked, and he wants nothing more than to go back to his apartment and try to forget about it, preferably with the help of a drink or three. Unfortunately, he’s got a basement full of stunned thugs, two more out there somewhere and a convicted arms dealer out for his blood.

The last thing he wants to deal with after all this is the HCPD, but, well, it’s not like he ever gets what he wants anyway.

He searches through the shattered crates, and it doesn’t take him too long to find his comms and his wallet, minus a few creds of course. With a groan he makes his way up the rickety stairs, out of the shitty basement of an even shittier apartment building and onto the street, looking around until he spots a beat-up street sign so he can figure out where the hell he is.

With a sigh he takes out his comms and makes the call, before finding somewhere to hole up in the likely event that someone else shows up before the cops do.

He’s actually pretty surprised when the cops show up first, in fact he’d go so far as to call it a stroke of good luck, except for the fact that fact that it’s the HCPD and half of them hate him and the other half don’t give a shit. Still, given a choice between the HCPD and the arms dealer who’s promised to murder him horribly… the HCPD wins. Just.

Still, it’s clear that the officers sent to clear up this mess are about as happy to be dealing with him as he is to be dealing with them, and it take an hour of suspicious glares, wild accusations and thinly veiled threats of violence before he finally manages to give his statement. Thankfully he manages to avoid getting arrested for savagely attacking three fine upstanding thugs, but it’s a near thing.

At last he manages to get away and hail a cab. He just wants to go home, he’s so far beyond done with today, but even he knows better than to try and set his own broken bones. Reluctantly, he gives the address of the clinic closest to his apartment and tries not to fall asleep in the back seat of the cab, since that’s a nice way to wake up missing just your wallet if you’re _lucky_.

He stumbles into the clinic, and it’s another couple of hours before he stumbles back out, his broken nose set straight and his wrist in a cast with firm instructions to take it easy for the next few days that he fully intends to ignore.

The few minutes’ walk to his apartment feels like a blood marathon, the out of order sign on the elevator is a slap in the face and the journey up nine flights of stairs is pure torture. At last he makes it through his front door and just barely remembers that faceplanting on his couch with a broken nose would _suck_ and crashes down into it sideways instead.

He means to sit there for just a few moments to work enough energy to move, but he makes the mistake of shutting his eyes for a few moments, and well-

* * *

When Rita walks into the office the next day she gasps loudly, and Juno can’t help but wince. He doesn’t blame her, he knows what he looks like; two black eyes, tape on his nose, one wrist in a cast and generally looking exactly like he got in a nock down, drag out fight and then fell asleep on his couch. Still, he’s got one hell of a headache, and Rita’s, well, she’s _loud_.

“Mistah Steel! What happened to your face?”

“I got punched in it. A couple of times actually.” Juno sighs, trying and failing to pay attention to the paperwork from yesterday’s cases.

“Did’ya get mugged? Was it a bar brawl? Did, whatsherface… Miss Martinez from yesterday go after you because you found out about her illegal gambling ring?”

“Miss Martinez is ninety-three Rita-”

“So? That doesn’t mean she couldn’t beat you up, I’ve met some pretty scary old ladies-“

“She’s ninety-three and carries a blaster built into her cane, and rumour has it she’s a pretty good shot with it. If I’d pissed her off enough to hurt me she wouldn’t bother beating me up, she’d just shoot me and be done with it. I just got kidnapped is all.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. Sometimes it just happens, it’s not like this is the _safest_ job-“

“Yeah I get that boss, but I’m pretty sure even other private eyes don’t get kidnapped as much as you do, what’s this, the sixth or seventh time?”

“Sixth. That time with the opera singer and the professional hovercar racer doesn’t count, it was an accident-“

“How do you _accidentally_ kidnap someone?”

“And six isn’t _that_ bad-“

“All I’m saying is you should probably start taking some precautions if this is going to be a habit, boss. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“That’s-“ Juno cuts him off, “That’s actually a pretty good point.”

“I could find you a tracking chip! Or an emergency beacon built into a belt buckle! Or a pen that when you click it three times turns into a stun grenade! Do they even have those? Where would I _get_ one of those?”

“Tell you what, I’ll give it some thought and get back to you on that Rita.” Juno cuts her off quickly, before she starts trying to build an exploding pen or start hiding comms in his shoes or something.

Still, it’s not the worst idea. Not the exploding pen, because that sounds like a great way to accidentally blow himself up, but the whole taking precautions thing. It’d be nice not to have to break his own thumb next time he has to get out of a set of cuffs.

He looks down at the cuff of his sleeve thoughtfully, there’s enough space to fit something small, a plasma box cutter maybe?

“Hey Rita? How good are you at sewing?”

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from You Know My Name by Chris Cornell.
> 
> Feel free to check out silfrvarg.tumblr.com if you want to send in a prompt, but be warned that uni has eaten my life so it might take me a while to get to it because humans have too many muscles and I'm a (wannabe) psychologist, not a doctor damnit!


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